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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 49 doesn't extract specifc enrollment numbers he's seeking from the press conference, he moves on. Kurtz did say numbers have trended down in the past. Tat's good enough. "I believe, well, I've been consult- ed to believe that people don't remember the numbers. Tey remember what they feel," Corsey says. "Tey care about, 'Can I get my kid out of JCPS and into Catholic school for next to no money?' Tat's what I'm thinking when I'm doing my story. I don't get lost in the weeds." He hunts for a "prop" to hold up in his live shot, settling on a packet of papers. Live camera rolling. "Tis is the an- nouncement released about an hour ago..." He doesn't finch when a motorist honks in the middle of his live shot. When he goes to Fourth Street Live to fnd parents to interview for his story, he's friendly and smooth, leaning into a bus shelter, micro- phone inches from a woman. "You got kids in JCPS schools?" he asks. "Can I ask you a few questions?" He might start with "You mind talking to me? I'm freezing out here!" ("I'm not above the pity interview," he jokes.) And he high-fves children and other good guys in stories. I ask him between interviews, "Why TV news?" Te answer dates back to April 1992. WrestleMania VIII was on TV. Eight-year-old Corsey was obsessed with professional wrestling. "Gobbling all I could consume," he says. Hulk Hogan wrestled Sid Justice. Ric Flair defended his title against Randy Savage. In the weeks and months after WrestleMania VIII, Corsey realized those announcers were paid to watch wrestling and talk about it. "I was like, 'I'm going to do that,'" he says. Turns out WWE hires announcers with news backgrounds. "Storytellers," Corsey explains. As we drive back to the station with about three hours to go before Corsey must anchor the 4 p.m. (and he still has to write the Catholic-schools piece), he asks me a question I hear a lot during my time at WDRB. "So why'd you get out?" I reply with my standard answer: "It just wasn't for me." When I frst entered TV news, the excitement of it all romanced me. Tat frst year I slept with a police scanner by my bed some nights as to not miss any- thing. Tat now seems foolish and a total waste of rest. I was in Medford. Not a lot of action. As is wont to happen in your 20s, my personality deepened, solidifed, clashing with my chosen career. I found success — awards and opportunity. But I'm shy. I hate getting my picture taken. I didn't like having to approach victims of crime or accidents when emotions were still raw. It's doubtful that anyone in TV news enjoys pestering people in pain, but most can accept it as part of the job. "I was scared to leave it," I tell Corsey. "News?" he asks. "Cause you feel like, 'What else am I going to do? I'm a one-trick pony,'" I say. "Oh, yeah," he nods. "I understand that." Corsey returns to the station, slides headphones on and starts listening to all his interviews. Like many in the business, Corsey, at one time, thought his goal was to report and anchor in a large city. But he likes it here. He announces for Ohio Valley Wrestling. Tat gig led to one stint with TNA, the professional wrestling company that's just below WWE. WDRB has a number of people who've stuck around lon- ger than they may have originally planned. "It takes you awhile to move up," Emily Mieure, a reporter, told me one afternoon. "Here, no one leaves. I've been here two years now; I worked weekends up until the 6 o'clock show started because there's no movement. I just got so lucky because we added a newscast." At just before 4 p.m., Corsey grabs a bright-green plastic jack-o-lantern bucket that holds his hairbrush and what he calls "face paint" — Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse Cocoa #3. He goes to the make- up room, a closet-sized space with a sink, mirror and anti-bacterial soap. He dabs his face, swipes the brush over his hair, straightens his tie and heads to the set to anchor. His days will go like this indefnite- ly. "I told Barry (Fulmer), I'm here until Vince McMahan calls," Corsey says. Vince McMahan owns WWE. O n Nov. 18, Jennifer Keeney's day doesn't start well. She spills cofee all over her ofce. Te 39-year- old with long, dark hair, childlike freckles and intense eyes flls a mug with hot water, settling for tea, and heads to the conference room for the morning meeting. She walks past a bulletin board that holds overnight ratings, which will give her the surge all that lost cafeine no longer can. Fulmer sits in his chair at the head of the table. Keeney's to his right. "Let me tell you what's glowing, ladies and gentlemen: those ratings from yesterday." "Do tell," Corsey chimes in. Te day before, a couple inches of snow dropped in the morning, so WDRB's morning show went on early. Keeney worked overnight to help produce it. "Well, our 4 a.m. did a 2.1, which is usually what our 5 a.m. does. But our 5 a.m. jumped to a 5.7," Fulmer says. "Wow," Keeney mutters. "Our 6 o'clock (a.m.) did a 6.5. Number one. And WDRB in the Morning, from 7 to 9, did a 7.3. Te last quarter-hour was a 9.1." (Tose numbers refect percentages. In this market, roughly 657,000 households have a televi- sion. Tat last quarter-hour, Nielsen reports that 9.1 percent of those households tuned into WDRB. Nielsen actually only surveys about 400 of those 657,000 households.) Someone whispers, "Wow." A stunned hush. Or is it a sigh of relief? Keeney leans forward in her chair. "Our meteorologists nailed that forecast. We never blew anything out of proportion, and what they said was going to happen is exactly what happened," she says, pausing for a breath. "Toni (Konz) has a source in JCPS who told her 12 minutes before the email went out and the Tweet went out that JCPS closed. So two stations had 'decision pending' and WAVE had them as open." (Toni Konz is one of the four C-J news reporters. Unlike their TV brethren, the four work beats, the same beats they had for years at the newspaper: Konz focuses on education, Marcus Green on infrastructure, Chris Otts on business and Jason Riley on courts.) "We were the ones getting the informa- tion right," Keeney says, adding, "We were the ones getting it frst." Trust. Newsrooms long for it. Some lean on promos that showcase on-air talent performing trust-y deeds, like shaking hands with strangers in town. Tey may declare it: "Te most accurate weather team" or "A team you can trust." A lot of it comes down to an unknown alchemy, fckle tastes that have a viewer loyal to, say, Dawne Gee's folksy warmth. Despite the rise of online news sources, local TV news remains a staple. According to the Pew Research Center, three out of four Americans, or 71 percent, watch local television news, compared with 65 percent viewing national newscasts and 38 percent watching cable news. Pew also reports that while viewership has been trending down REC When I frst entered TV news, the excitement of it all romanced me. That frst year I slept with a police scanner by my bed some nights as to not miss anything. That now seems foolish and a total waste of rest. Continued on page 89